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The resilient city of Hammond is the place of Flick's triple dog dare, where John Dillinger never robbed a bank because of busy railroad crossings, and where an original National Football League team started in 1920. This city of 78,000 extends down from Lake Michigan in the shadow of neighboring Chicago along the state line. Hammond began in the late 19th century as a railroad town, industrial center, and commercial crossroads and remains famous through humorist Jean Shepherd's tales of Ralphie's quest for a BB gun in A Christmas Story. It has also been home to the secret behind Dairy Queen, groundbreaking CBS sportscaster Irv Cross, the Doublemint Twins, and, most deliciously, Phil Smidt's frog legs. Having shaken off the Rust Belt moniker in the 21st century, the Idaho-shaped city rests on storied foundations such as the First Baptist Church, the Ophelia Steen Center, the Hammond Public Library, a Purdue campus, and those darn railroads that still whistle through the Calumet Region nights.

About 17 city blocks comprise the North Meridian Street Historic District as recognized by the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. The Meridian Street corridor has housed Indiana’s governors, innovators in business and medicine, barons of industry, celebrities, and darlings of the arts and literature, as well as folks of local, national, and international importance, boasting names like Charles W. Fairbanks, Dan Quayle, Mike Pence, J.K. Lilly, Arthur Newby, Booth Tarkington, and Rev. Howard Cadle. Many Meridian residents were integral in shaping the Indianapolis known today.

When Schererville was platted in 1866, founder and namesake Nicholas Scherer could not have imagined it becoming one of the “100 Best Places to Live in the U.S.” That distinction was bestowed in 2007 by Money magazine. By then, its population had soared from 25 families to over 25,000 residents and surrounding areas had been incorporated. By its 2016 sesquicentennial, the expanding schools included a middle school, three elementary schools, and three private schools. As part of the Tri-Town area, Schererville students attend high school in St. John, where student enrollment now exceeds Schererville’s entire centennial population in 1966. Growth is partly attributed to the major highway routes often based on Indian trails crisscrossing the region. Over 900 businesses operate in Schererville today, bringing with them jobs, goods, services, and prosperity. Schererville’s humble beginnings and enduring title as “Crossroads of the Nation” are explained through this portrait of early settlers, government accomplishments, and the contributions of its citizens.

The three things needed for the defense of a nation and its people are honest, resolute leaders; brave military service members; and a dedicated industry that can provide the proper tools needed to keep citizens safe from harm. Ever since the very beginning of the United States' existence, businesses have devoted countless amounts of time and effort to design, engineer, and produce the weapons and systems that the men and women of the armed forces need for protecting the country. A substantial part of America's "Arsenal of Democracy" has been centered in and around South Bend, Indiana. The Studebaker Company produced thousands of wagons for the Union army during the Civil War, plus trucks, aircraft engines, and more for later conflicts. Today, its descendant AM General Corporation produces tactical wheeled vehicles, including the renowned Humvee in all its many variations, for the United States and its allies. Honeywell Corporation has a long and colorful history in South Bend as well, while many smaller companies answered the call to produce military equipment for the armies of freedom.

Das Deutsche Haus, now known as the Athenaeum, is one of the great architectural and historic treasures of Indianapolis. Now recognized as a national landmark, it is emblematic not just of the culture of this great Midwestern city but also of the role of German immigrants, particularly die Freidenker (the freethinkers), who sought to build a community centered on secular ideas and family. It is a cathedral to healthy minds and bodies, boldness and ingenuity, and cultural inclusiveness and the arts. This building's 19th-century founders would approve of the Athenaeum today--a multicultural center, throbbing with life, that unites a diverse community with its past and beckons a bright future. The structure looks the same as it did a century and a quarter ago and serves much the same purpose.